replaying a semi-accurate PCL

[thehef]

I want to try a replay of the Pacific Coast League's golden era (pre-1958), starting where OOTP introduces the PCL, in 1921. OOTP doesn't really provide the mechanism to easily do such a thing, but that doesn't mean it can't be done. I think. So I'm going to attempt it, setting rosters each season (using baseballreference.com as the source), using the player-strategy "lock to current team" feature, and creating multiple "human" managers in order to keep AI from changing rosters. Injury frequency will be very low, and the durations will be short (including no CEI or SEI). Hopefully I'll be able to limit most of my manual roster management to the offseasons/pre-seasons, and keep it minimal during the regular seasons. I won't be playing out many games except for playoffs.

Will see how it goes... Any tips, suggestions, or questions, LMK!

[luckymann]

Originally Posted by thehef

I want to try a replay of the Pacific Coast League's golden era (pre-1958), starting where OOTP introduces the PCL, in 1921. OOTP doesn't really provide the mechanism to easily do such a thing, but that doesn't mean it can't be done. I think. So I'm going to attempt it, setting rosters each season (using baseballreference.com as the source), using the player-strategy "lock to current team" feature, and creating multiple "human" managers in order to keep AI from changing rosters. Injury frequency will be very low, and the durations will be short (including no CEI or SEI). Hopefully I'll be able to limit most of my manual roster management to the offseasons/pre-seasons, and keep it minimal during the regular seasons. I won't be playing out many games except for playoffs.

Will see how it goes... Any tips, suggestions, or questions, LMK!

Are you planning on having it as a Minor League feeding into the MLB or just as a standalone?

Either way I hope you do a thread on it as I'll be a keen subscriber!

[thehef]

Originally Posted by luckymann

Are you planning on having it as a Minor League feeding into the MLB or just as a standalone?

I guess the former. I'll be doing OOTP historical with minors, as that's the only way I know to get access to the minor league players. I would love to enable historical transactions (in order to facilitate as much real-life player movement as possible), however, OOTP currently has a bug where if historical txns and minors are both enabled, then players will be rated for a season that is one year off into the future. IOW, players in, say, 1950 will be rated based upon their 1951 stats. So for that reason, historical txns will be off... I will be paying next to zero attention to MLB, the Texas League, Negro League, and the other minor leagues that will eventually appear. Basically I'll only get involved in those if the game won't run due to too many or too few players on a team.

Originally Posted by luckymann

Either way I hope you do a thread on it as I'll be a keen subscriber!

I'll try to post updates here. I'm not much a dynasty reporter, but I'll do what I can. And will of course note any challenges on the mechanics of trying to pull this off...

[luckymann]

I wish I had experience in this realm so I could offer you some insights. But I don't, so I will instead offer my best wishes for your success and look forward to seeing tidbits here and there.

Amazin69 might be the guy to hit up, as he seems to know a fair bit about OOTP / MiLB.

[No Pepper]

If you haven't already, have a look at http://pclredux.net/index.html. There might be some useful nuggets there to help you on your way.

[thehef]

Originally Posted by luckymann

I wish I had experience in this realm so I could offer you some insights. But I don't, so I will instead offer my best wishes for your success and look forward to seeing tidbits here and there.

Amazin69 might be the guy to hit up, as he seems to know a fair bit about OOTP / MiLB.

Thanks! I've done a fair amount of minors testing in the beta historical group, so I think I know what I'm doing. But those who "think they know..." can be the most clueless & dangerous , so I will keep that in mind and may hit him up!

[thehef]

Originally Posted by No Pepper

If you haven't already, have a look at http://pclredux.net/index.html. There might be some useful nuggets there to help you on your way.

Interesting. Do you know who runs it? I'm curious about how they handled/are handling players that OOTP retires (for the PCL's purposes) prematurely. Background:

Since some minor league players don't always debut in OOTP when they should, I started my PCL sim in 1915 and just let it run until 1921, hoping that all the PCLers I need would be in the game (nearly all were). That said...

OOTP frequently retires players once their real-life MLB careers are finished, even if they went on to play more seasons in the minors. Unretiring them and placing them on their real PCL teams is no problem, but sometimes these players end up with terrible ratings that do not correspond to their actual PCL performance. Since I don't have a formula or other means to convert their real-life PCL stats to major league equivalents (for input on the player editor screen), it just ends up being guesswork... So I'm wondering how the PCL Redux folks handle that...

EDIT: To clarify, I started my PCL sim in 1915 - with minors - at which point OOTP does not yet include the PCL. So I let it run until 1921, when the PCL appears, and that's when I jumped in. (Most of us know this, but OOTP with minors gives us the Federal League for 1914 & 1915, adds the Texas League in 1919, the Negro League in 1920, the PCL in 1921, and then various other leagues as sim-time goes by...)

[No Pepper]

I do not know off-hand who runs it, but it looks like the site hasn't been updated since March so it may be in hiatus or at its end. I thought the site had their database for PCL players available to download, apart from what you can scrabble from BRef, but I may be confusing that with another source.

If you browse the Rules section (and embedded links) there's a rather in-depth look at some of the questions you have (development engine on) but a fair amount commissioner surveying/editing or excuse my pun "out of the park(game)" work to be done to achieve those goals.

I know you may be set on using historical transactions, retire according to history, recalc, but I'd sacrifice all that and go full developmental engine, on a first go at it. I'm not experienced enough to know if there's significant problems/tradeoffs with doing that but at one point one has to decide if you want realistic accuracy at the cost of gameplay.

I've toyed with using the minor league database to mass import players instead of using the automatic import but as you know these players' ratings are nerfed by OOTP. I've had to adjust fielding and pitcher ratings for some players with black magic to get some level of parity/sanity.

As far as reassigning MLB retirees or the like, to the PCL, check this link out: http://pclredux.net/essays/resetcriteria.html
Again, it's god-mode taking over here, not OOTP run on auto. You may find that fun, or not.

Rambling...

[thehef]

Originally Posted by No Pepper

I know you may be set on using historical transactions, retire according to history, recalc, but I'd sacrifice all that and go full developmental engine, on a first go at it. I'm not experienced enough to know if there's significant problems/tradeoffs with doing that but at one point one has to decide if you want realistic accuracy at the cost of gameplay.

No, definitely not using historical txns:

Originally Posted by thehef

I would love to enable historical transactions (in order to facilitate as much real-life player movement as possible), however, OOTP currently has a bug where if historical txns and minors are both enabled, then players will be rated for a season that is one year off into the future. IOW, players in, say, 1950 will be rated based upon their 1951 stats. So for that reason, historical txns will be off...

I never like using retire according to history, and I don't see a reason to use it here. (It's another subject, but several versions ago OOTP removed the ability to NOT use Retire Accdg to Hist (and Miss Seasons Accdg to Hist) with historical transactions On. Although you can uncheck those boxes, that has no effect. Why they did this I'll NEVER know, as it makes certain "what ifs" - that can be a lot of fun for some - much more reliant on intensive manual intervention. I guess somebody somewhere decided that not having RAH and MSAH selected was counter to the purpose of using historical transactions, and that their way was the only way for everybody to have it. But as I said, that's another subject/rant... and I will continue to argue for a restoration of the feature as it used to be.) ... Anyways, since I'm not using historical txns, I fully expect RAH and MSAH to function correctly - as in they will be off...

I'm definitely using recalc, as the alternatives would be either a) careers that go in radically divergent directions from reality, or b) a TON of manual editing on my part. Neither of those appeal to me. Besides, since I want realism in terms of player progression and performance, recalc seems to be the way to go.

I could change my opinion on some of the above as sim-time goes by, but most of the groundwork has been done, so that's how I'll be moving forward

Originally Posted by No Pepper

I do not know off-hand who runs it, but it looks like the site hasn't been updated since March so it may be in hiatus or at its end. I thought the site had their database for PCL players available to download, apart from what you can scrabble from BRef, but I may be confusing that with another source.

If you browse the Rules section (and embedded links) there's a rather in-depth look at some of the questions you have (development engine on) but a fair amount commissioner surveying/editing or excuse my pun "out of the park(game)" work to be done to achieve those goals.
...
As far as reassigning MLB retirees or the like, to the PCL, check this link out: http://pclredux.net/essays/resetcriteria.html
Again, it's god-mode taking over here, not OOTP run on auto. You may find that fun, or not.

From the link you provided re reset criteria, and the info elsewhere, it looks like the commish of this league does a TON of editing and - as you say - black magic. That's beyond what I want to do. For this first - pretty much "test" - pass at doing this, I'm just looking for the flavor of the classic PCL. If certain guys' careers play out a lot differently than in real life (because I didn't edit them correctly, or didn't edit them at all), well I'll live with that as a more-palatable alternative than the mass-mayhem-of-the-unexpected that would come with full development on. But I want to see guys like the DiMaggios, Teddy Ballgame, Buzz Arlett, Doc Crandall and other PCL legends stick somewhat closely to their real life performance. (It very well may end up that I don't get this at all, and that I'll be back to the drawingboard...)

Originally Posted by No Pepper

I've toyed with using the minor league database to mass import players instead of using the automatic import but as you know these players' ratings are nerfed by OOTP. I've had to adjust fielding and pitcher ratings for some players with black magic to get some level of parity/sanity.

This reminds me that I need to take a look at some of the fielding ratings for guys that showed up initially as retired....

Originally Posted by No Pepper

Rambling...

Not at all - great stuff! Thanks!

[drambrosini]

maybe this dinasty by Tiger Fan will interest you

https://forums.ootpdevelopments.com/...d.php?t=287661

[thehef]

Originally Posted by drambrosini

maybe this dinasty by Tiger Fan will interest you

https://forums.ootpdevelopments.com/...d.php?t=287661

I had forgotten about that one. I'll check it out. Thanks!